Creek Wood pulls away from White House Heritage on homecoming

Creek Wood running back Danny Stansberry scored three touchdowns on the night

Photo: Marty Allison/DicksonSportsMedia

By Casey Patrick

cpatrick@mainstreetmediatn.com

CHARLOTTE, TN – Creek Wood defeated White House-Heritage on homecoming Friday night by a score of 49-27. That final score doesn’t do much justice to the real game, as the Patriots from White House-Heritage were within one score before a Will Secker rushing touchdown with only three minutes left in the game made it 42-27. Creek Wood running back Danny Stansberry would then take it to the house for his third touchdown of the night to get it to the final 49-27 score.

Although Creek Wood allowed a season-high of 27 points to White House-Heritage, that was the lowest point total the Patriots have scored all season. The Patriots offense averaged over 39 points per game and they continued with another strong offensive performance against the Red Hawks.

The Patriots compiled 335 yards of total offense compared to Creek Wood’s 384, but the ground game was the real story. The Red Hawks finished with 247 yards rushing on the night and White House-Heritage finished with 189. Will Wilson started off the offensive light show as he scored on a 19 yard run to take a Patriot 7-0 lead.

That first touchdown would be the only score of the first quarter due to two fumbles; one by each team, but that’s when the scoring really started. Stansberry’s first touchdown of the night came on an 11 yard rush where he broke several tackles and reached the ball out over the end zone line. Soon after, Jackson Mapes ran in, for what would be the first of two touchdowns on the night for him, and took back a 14-7 lead for White House-Heritage.

Quarterback Elijah Donaldson would answer for Creek Wood and get in the end zone on a keeper from 11 yards out, but the extra point was blocked, giving the Patriots a one point advantage. After a big fumble recovery from Zach Bone, the Red Hawks marched back down the field to the end zone and threw the ball up to Sam Batey. Batey made a big play and came down with the ball to give Creek Wood a 20-14 lead with only 22 seconds left in the second quarter.

“This is just so much fun and always puts a smile on my face. I just know they got my back and I got theirs.”

The two teams combined for five total touchdowns in the second quarter, including a kick return right before half. After it had seemed like Creek Wood took all the momentum, the Patriots took the ensuing kickoff 93 yards for the White House-Heritage touchdown. The speedy Parker Deaton found a hole in the Creek Wood special teams and took advantage.

“I told the guys at halftime that was on me,” Creek Wood coach Houston Thiel said. “I had a bad call and put our guys in a bad position. We always talk about they have my back and I have their back and in that second half they had my back.”

Creek Wood took the ball at the beginning of the second half and started making their way down the field until an interception by Chance Anderson stopped the Red Hawk momentum. The Patriots found a first down on the first play from scrimmage after that, but turned the ball over back to Creek Wood on the next play.

“I think we played hard but we turned the ball over too much on offense,” White House-Heritage coach Stetson Dickerson said. “We just turned the ball over too many times to beat a good football team, and Creek Wood has a good football team.

“If we’re going to go on the road and beat good teams we have to make tackles and take care of the ball and we didn’t do that.”

Danny Stansberry would then run in for his second touchdown of the night from 20 yards out. After the touchdown, Creek Wood decided to go for two. Will Secker caught a pass from Elijah Donaldson to complete the two-point conversion to give Creek Wood the 28-21 lead.

Just under five minutes later, the Patriots answered as they had all evening, as Jackson Mapes powered his way into the end zone for his second touchdown of the night. The extra point was blocked and Creek Wood hung on to a one point lead at 28-27.

That would be the last time the Patriots scored, though, as Creek Wood would come back to score just two minutes later on a 41-yard pass from Elijah Donaldson to Sam Batey. The Red Hawk defense shutout the wild Patriot offense in the final quarter as Will Secker and Danny Stansberry finished off the evening with a touchdown each in the final four minutes of the game.

For White House-Heritage, the loss puts them at 4-3 on the season and they will turn their attention to White House for a big rivalry game as they look to get back into the win column.

“I’ve talked about it all week, we have not played a full 48 minutes yet,” Dickerson added. “We’re not good enough to only play 40 minutes and then let eight minutes slide. We have to get back to work Monday and figure out how to put 48 together.”

For Creek Wood, the Red Hawks will welcome a bye week next week as they look to rest up and get healthy. The Red Hawks, now at 6-1 on the season, will travel to White House in two weeks for their next opponent, but they will enjoy the homecoming victory for now.

It’s been amazing, and as you know this is our last homecoming,” Creek Wood’s Zach Bone stated.

“We had some people go down and we weren’t sure about this game, but we had guys step up and do big things. We’ve got people working hard and stepping up when they need to.”